CineSavant Column
Hello!
Here we are trying to begin the New Year on a positive note, and the favored discs in the review hopper are about war, crime, and tragedy. Well, at least Russ Meyer gets to express his idea of bliss in a new release. Nirvana is where you find it.
Hey, CineSavant correspondent Edward Parker Bolman has sent along a really interesting link item. Way back in our Famous Monsters days, Forry Ackerman’s articles about the original The Lost World highlighted the film’s ape man, played by actor Bull Montana. For sixty years we’ve been seeing references to a Bull Montana performance in another silent film, First National’s Go and Get It (1920) …. and been told that the movie was lost.
Fear not, for an Italian copy turned up intact in the Italian Cineteca archives, and is now on Youtube. It’s a full 90 minutes long. The Italian title is “Le avventure di un reporter.” It was restored in 2022 at the Cineteca Milano MicLab.
We’re shocked at how good the show looks … like, pristine. I even like the text style of the handwritten Italian intertitles.
A mad scientist (Noah Beery) transplants the brain of a vicious criminal (Hal Roach regular Walter Long) into the head of a gorilla (Bull Montana). This can’t be the movies’ first ape-man brain transplant, later a goofy horror sub-genre … pop culture liked nothing better than to associate Darwinian ideas with medical atrocities.
Mr. Bolman explains:
“The director is Marshall Neilan. The gorilla’s murders are entirely off screen; perhaps the Italian distributor censored some more horrific scenes?”
“The hero jumps onto and off of boats, biplanes, and moving trains in a notable action sequence.”
“Writers Ring Lardner and Irvin S. Cobb are said to be in there somewhere, as actors.”
“Dinty the newsboy is played by Wesley Barry, a child actor who 42 years later produced and directed … wait for it … The Creation of the Humanoids.
The ninety-minute feature looks great!
We’re boosters of everything to do with The Film Noir Foundation. Their newsletter for January has promotions for everything from the booming Noir City screening programs, their ongoing film restoration program, and various publications.
The new Noir City Magazine is out — read about it (and get involved) at the bottom of the Foundation’s main web page:
And we’re always grateful to David J. Schow for sending us such interesting links, and jumped at the opportunity to help promote his latest film book. I was a reader of David’s original long- OOP Outer Limits Reader; unfortunately, my copy disintegrated many moons ago. Did I loan it out too often?
David is the authority on all things Leslie Stevens, The Outer Limits, etc.. My Mac calendar informs me that it was November 23, 2010 that I had David over to view a rare copy of a TV show nobody had seen in 40 years, that had become little more than a rumor. It was the only Outer Limits- related show David had never seen.
But mostly the good favors have come in the other direction, my way. This week’s blurb is that the publishers Cimarron Street Books new release
Inside Leslie Stevens’ Lost Horror Classic
has been obtainable since January 1. The website just above has a full description and some sample pages.
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson